Did you ever notice: When you put the two words "The" and "IRS" together, they spell "THEIRS"?

Bill Gates and the president of General Motors were having lunch. Gates boasted of the innovations his company had made. "If GM had kept up with technology the way Microsoft has, we'd all be driving $25 cars that get 1,000 m.p.g."

"I suppose that's true," the GM exec agreed. "But would you really want your car to crash twice a day?"

 

 

Driving through Southern California, I stopped at a roadside stand that sold fruit, vegetables and crafts. As I went to pay, I noticed the young woman behind the counter was painting a sign. "Why the new sign?" I asked.

"My boyfriend didn't approve of the old one," she said. When I glanced at what hung above the counter, I understood. It declared: "Local Honey Dates Nuts."

What do you call a Far Eastern monk who sells reincarnations?

A used karma dealer.

 

 

Overheard: "Yesterday I got my tie stuck in the fax machine. Next thing I knew, I was in Los Angeles."

 

 

Sitting in the first row of coach class during a lengthy flight, my wife and I were able to hear a flight attendant as he pushed a wine cart down the aisle in the first-class section. "Would you care for chardonnay or burgundy?" he asked the high-paying passengers. A few minutes later the attendant opened the curtain between the two sections, offered wine to one final first-class patron, then wheeled the same cart forward to our aisle. "Excuse me," he said, looking down at us, "would you care for a glass of wine? We have white and red."  

Telephone solicitors are one of my father's pet peeves. He is especially annoyed by those who offer "free gifts" as part of their sales pitch. Late one night, Dad was in bed when the phone rang.

The voice on the end of the line said: "Congratulations, you've just won a free burial plot!"

"Great!" Dad replied. "Send it over." Then he hung up.

 

 

 

I am five feet, three inches tall and pleasingly plump. After I had a minor accident, my mother accompanied me to the emergency room.

The triage nurse asked for my height and weight, and I blurted out, "Five-foot-eight and 125 pounds."

While the nurse pondered this information, my mother leaned over to me. "Sweetheart," she gently chided, "this is not the Internet."

 

 

I work at a department store where every night at closing time one of our customer-service representatives reminds shoppers over the public-address system to finish their shopping. One evening, a woman who had recently worked at a Kmart opened the announcement by saying, "Attention Kmart shoppers…"

Quickly realizing her mistake, she tap-danced her way out of trouble by adding, "You are in the wrong store."

 

 

The fur began to fly when my fellow airplane passengers learned there was a chance they might miss their connecting flights out of Aspen. When we finally landed, I found out just how nasty things got.

Over the intercom, a harried flight attendant announced, "Those of you continuing on to L.A., please wait outside next to the boarding ramp and we will have a shuttle run you over."

 

 

During a visit to the ladies' room, my friend Addy heard the woman in the next stall suddenly ask, "So how are you?"

Startled, Addy replied tentatively, "Fine."

The woman continued, "So what's new?"

Still confused, Addy said, "Not much. What's new with you?"

It was then that the woman snapped, "Do you mind? I'm on the phone."

 

 

One of my customers at the department of motor vehicles wanted a personalized license plate with his wedding anniversary on it. As we completed the paperwork he explained, "This way I can't forget the date."

A few hours later, I recognized the same young man waiting in my line. When his turn came, he said somewhat sheepishly, "I need to change the numbers on that plate application."

 

 

A friend of mine, a professional organist, was asked to play for a wedding. Unfamiliar with the church's organ, she went to the sanctuary to practice. Curious about a small keyboard that slid out from under the two regular keyboards, she tapped out a couple of bars of a children's song but heard nothing. Then she played a few more notes, but still no organ music.

Just then a man came running into the church, shouting, "Who's playing 'Three Blind Mice' on the church-steeple bells?"

She had been operating the carillon.

The phone rings at the synagogue office.

"Hello, is this Rabbi Schwartz?" The caller asked.

"It is."

"This is the Internal Revenue Service. We wonder if you can help us."

"I'll try."

"Do you know Herman Cohen?"

"I do."

"Is this man a member of your congregation."

"He is."

"Did he donate $10,000?"

"He will."

 

 

My friend John came into French class one Monday with a pillow that he placed on his seat. Over the weekend he had been skiing and mildly fractured his tailbone. Our teacher promptly asked him to explain, en français, why he was sitting on a pillow.

To our amusement, John answered, "Sorbonne."

As part of his talk at a banquet, our minister told some jokes and a few funny stories. Since he planned to use the same anecdotes at a meeting the next day, he asked reporters covering the event not to include them in their articles.

Reading the paper the following morning, he noticed that one well-meaning cub reporter had ended his story on the banquet with the observation "The minister told a number of stories that cannot be published."

When our air conditioner broke down, we called for a serviceman to come and take a look at it. It turned out to be a high school classmate of my husband's named Love. He said next time we needed any repairs to ask for him. The next year when we needed service again, we requested Mr. Love. I took the day off from work and waited for him to arrive. After he had worked on our air conditioner, he left his work order behind. It had my name and said: "Wants Love in afternoon."  

Jesus, Moses, and an old bearded guy were playing golf. On the first tee, Moses shanked his ball into a lake. He parted the water and hit his ball onto the green.

Jesus teed off, hitting his ball into another water hazard. But he walked on water and stroked his ball just short of the cup.

Then the old man with the beard stepped up for his tee shot. He hit the ball with tremendous force, but hooked it badly. The ball bounced off the clubhouse roof, hit the cart path, and rolled down a hill into a pond, coming to rest on a lily pad. A frog hopped over and picked up the ball, then an eagle swooped down, snatched the frog, and flew over the green. The frog dropped the ball, and it rolled into the cup for a hole in one.

Moses turned to Jesus and said, "I hate playing golf with your dad."

Not long after I resigned as pastor of a small community church, the phone rang. "Is the reverend there?" a man asked.

I explained that I was a minister, though not the current pastor.

"You'll do," he said. The man wanted to know which Scripture verses applied to funeral services.

I gave him several references, and he jotted them down.

"What about the 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' part?" he asked.

I read it to him slowly. Then, intending to offer him some sympathy, I inquired, "And who is the deceased?"

"My daughter's rabbit," he replied.

One Sunday morning my sister Liz was surprised to receive a phone call from her minister. He reported that he'd just been in a minor car accident and asked if she could inform the congregation he'd be unable to conduct services that day.

Liz was flattered that out of the entire congregation, she was the one he had called—until the minister went on to say that since Liz was always the last to arrive at church, he knew she would be the only person he could still reach at home.

As the golfer approached the first tee, a hazardous hole with a green surrounded by water, he debated if he should use his new golf ball. Deciding that the hole was too treacherous, he pulled an old ball out and placed it on the tee. Just then he heard a voice from above say loudly, "Use the new ball!"

Frightened, he replaced the old ball with the new and approached the tee. Now the voice from above shouted, "Take a practice swing!"

With this, the golfer stepped backward and took a swing.

Feeling more confident, he approached the tee when the voice again rang out, "Use the old ball!"

 

 

The pastor of my church hates to plead for money. But when the coffers were running low, he had no choice. "There's good news and there's bad news," he told the congregation. "The good news is that we have more than enough money for all the current and future needs of the parish. The bad news is, it's still in your pockets."

My boyfriend was working in the souvenir shop at Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, England. One afternoon he was talking with an attendant who worked in the cathedral when they were approached by two tourists. "Are you a monk?" one of the women asked.

"No," the attendant explained, "I wear this robe as part of my job, but I'm not a member of any religious order."

"Then where are the monks?" asked the woman.

The man replied, "Oh, there haven't been any monks here since 1415."

Hearing this, the woman looked at her watch and announced to her friend, "Betty, we missed the monks."

 

 

During an ice storm I went to check the mailbox, carefully shuffling down the driveway. When I reached for the mail, my feet went straight up in the air, and I landed on my back. More embarrassed than hurt, I looked to see if anyone witnessed my fall and spied a fire truck passing by. The crew had seen the whole thing.

Firefighters climbed out of the truck to assist me. "It's the preacher," one said. "Are you okay?"

"I just got the wind knocked out of me," I replied.

"Wow," said another firefighter. "It takes a lot to knock the wind out of a preacher!"

 

 

According to the Internet: Students in a Harvard English 101 class were asked to write a concise essay containing four elements: religion, royalty, sex and mystery. The only A+ in the class read: "'My God,' said the Queen, 'I'm pregnant! I wonder who did it.'"

 

As a freelance secretary, I type story manuscripts. When an author pays me, I print the name of the story across the top of his check. Once when I took a check to the bank, the teller suddenly froze. Only after I had explained my procedure to a bank officer did the reason for the teller's reaction become clear. The story was called "Your Money or Your Life," and that, of course, was what I had written in bold letters across the top of the check.  

For the second consecutive year, a Council Bluffs, Iowa, man listed his occupation as "hired killer" when he filed his federal income tax. The listing elicited no response from the Internal Revenue Service last year, the man says, so he decided to pull the same gag again. He is a pest exterminator.

On a curvy mountain highway late one night, my dad was complaining about the car behind us. "That guy must be drunk!" he said. "Every time I move over to let him pass, he slows down. When I get back on the road, he gets closer and stays on my tail."

Thirty minutes later, the car turned on a set of flashing blue lights. Coming up to our window, the officer said, "Sir, I'd like you to take an alcohol test. You've been swerving on and off the road for half an hour."

To my friend's astonishment, a police car pulled up to her house and her elderly grand-father got out. The patrolman explained that the old gentleman had been lost in the city park and had asked for help.

"Why, Grandfather," my friend said, "you've been going there for 40 years. How could you get lost?"

The old man smiled slyly. "Wasn't exactly lost," he admitted. "I just got tired of walking."

 

 

News that her third child was going to be a girl thrilled my cousin, who already had two boys. "My husband wants to call her Sunny," she told me, "and I want to give her Anna as her middle name in memory of my mom."

I thought they might want to reconsider their decision, since their birth announcement would herald the arrival of Sunny Anna Rainey.

A man entered a shop in Jacksonville, Florida, picked up a suitcase and fled with it. The manager pursued, calling a cop. They soon ran down the culprit.

"I don't know what made me do it," the man cried. "If only you won't arrest me, I'll be glad to pay for it."

The manager agreed, so they returned to the shop to complete the transaction. Once there, the customer grew cautious.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "this bag is a little better than I had in mind. I wonder if you could show me something cheaper?"

 

 

We were celebrating the 100th anniversary of our church, and several former pastors and the bishop were in attendance. At one point, our minister had the children gather at the altar for a talk about the importance of the day. He began by asking them, "Does anyone know what the bishop does?"

There was silence. But finally, one little boy answered gravely, "He's the one you can move diagonally."

 

 

In honor of Memorial Day, the teacher I worked with read the Constitution to her third-grade class. After reading "We the people," she paused to ask the children what they thought that meant. One boy raised his hand and asked, "Is that like 'We da bomb?' "    

As a Catholic, I'm partial to Notre Dame football. As a former Michigan resident, though, I also keep tabs on Michigan college teams. One Saturday afternoon, a neighbor dropped in while I was watching Notre Dame vs. Michigan State.

"Which team do you want to win?" he asked.

"Gee, I don't know," I replied. "I'm kind of torn between Church and State."

 

 

The teacher in our Bible class asked a woman to read from the Book of Numbers about the Israelites wandering in the desert. "The Lord heard you when you wailed, 'If only we had meat to eat!' " she began. "Now the Lord will give you meat. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, or ten or twenty days, but for a month—until you loathe it."

When the woman finished, she paused, looked up, and said, "Hey, isn't that the Atkins diet?"

 

 

If someone is addicted to eating Thanksgiving leftovers, can he quit cold turkey?

 

 

 

"If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would I get into heaven?" a teacher asked the children in her Sunday school class.

"No!" the children all answered.

"If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would I get into heaven?"

Again the answer was, "No!"

"Well," she continued, "then how can I get to heaven?"

A five-year-old boy shouted out, "You gotta be dead!"

Our regimental sergeant major was well known for his abuse of the English language, and we all joked about it. At parade one morning, he announced in a stentorian voice, "Certain people have been making allegations about me. If I catch these alligators, they will be in for a hard time."

One night when I dropped in at the police station on my news beat, a large, efficient-looking woman in uniform who packed a service revolver at her waist was behind the sergeant's desk. After checking the blotter, I returned to the car, where my wife was waiting for me.

"You should see the new woman on the force," I said. "She's tremendous, and wearing a .38."

I didn't notice the silence until my wife broke it icily with, "I wear a 38."

A doctor died and went to heaven, where he found a long line at St. Peter's gate. As was his custom, the doctor rushed to the front, but St. Peter told him to wait in line like everyone else. Muttering and looking at his watch, the doctor stood at the end of the line.

Moments later a white-haired man wearing a white coat and carrying a stethoscope and medical bag rushed up to the front of the line, waved to St. Peter, and was immediately admitted through the Pearly Gates.

"Hey!" the doctor shouted. "How come you let him through?"

"Oh," said St. Peter, "that's God. Sometimes he likes to play doctor."

 

 

 

 

 

A sign on Washington's Route 8, featuring an illustration of a police car with lights flashing, reads

"If you drink and drive, we'll provide the chasers."

The sentence in the Thanksgiving edition of my church bulletin intended to say "Thank you, Lord, for the many miracles we are too blind to see." But in what might have been a classic Freudian slip, the sentence read

"Thank you, Lord, for the many miracles we are too blond to see."

At an ecumenical round-table discussion, various religious leaders tried to answer the question "When does life start?"

"At conception," said the Catholic priest.

"No, no," said the Presbyterian minister. "It begins at birth."

"It's in between," said the Baptist. "Life begins at 12 weeks when the fetus develops a functional heartbeat."

"I disagree with all of you," said the rabbi. "Life begins when your last child leaves home and takes the dog with him."

 

 

As a state trooper, I hear many excuses by those caught speeding. Once, the driver ran back to my patrol unit to tell me someone in the car was sick and he was taking her to the hospital. I let the man go, but was suspicious when he declined my offer of a police escort. I decided to follow him.

By the time we reached the emergency entrance of the local hospital, I was feeling a little foolish about not trusting the man. When I noticed he was having difficulty getting an elderly woman out of his car, I walked over to offer my assistance. It was then that I overheard the struggling woman say, "Leave me alone. You told him someone was sick, so you be the sick one."

I wrote the ticket.

 

 

The Presbyterians were convening in Scotland. After a couple of days of sitting on hard pews, a group decided to stretch their legs in the countryside. Soon they approached a rickety old bridge over a river. They were so busy talking they missed the Keep Off the Bridge sign.

A villager saw them step onto the dangerous span and yelled for them to stop. "That's all right," one of the ministers responded. "We're here from the Presbyterian convention."

"I dinna care aboot that," came the reply. "But if ye go much farther, ye'll all be Baptists!"

 

 

A computer salesman dies and meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter tells the salesman that he can choose between heaven and hell. First he shows the man heaven, where people in white robes play harps and float around.

"Dull," says the salesman.

Next, St. Peter shows him hell: toga parties, excellent food and wine, and everyone looking as though he's having a wonderful time.

"I'll take hell," he says.

He enters the gates of hell and is immediately set upon by a dozen demons who poke him with pitchforks. "Hey," the salesman demands as Satan walks past, "what happened to the party I saw going on?"

"Ah," Satan replies. "You must have seen our demo."

Vacationing in Hawaii, two priests decide to wear casual clothes so they won't be identified as clergy. They buy Hawaiian shirts and sandals, and soon hit the beach. They notice a gorgeous blonde in a tiny bikini. "Good afternoon, Fathers," she says as she strolls by.

The men are stunned. How does she know they're clergy? Later they buy even wilder attire: surfer shorts, tie-dyed T-shirts, and dark glasses. The next day, they return to the beach. The same fabulous blonde, now wearing a string bikini, passes by, nods politely at them, and says, "Good morning, Fathers."

"Just a minute, young lady," says one of the priests. "We are priests and proud of it, but how in the world did you know?"

"Don't you recognize me? I'm Sister Kathryn from the convent."

A state trooper pulled us over for speeding on a deserted road in southern Utah. The road was empty, and he was almost apologetic about writing the ticket. He even complimented us for wearing our seat belts.

At that point, my wife leaned over and said, "Well, Officer, when you drive the speeds we do, you've got to wear them."

On a billboard ad for a safe company:

"If your stuff is stolen, it's not our vault."

An attorney I know once drafted wills for an elderly husband and wife who had been somewhat apprehensive about discussing death. When they arrived to sign the documents, he ushered the couple into his office.

"Now," he said to them, "which one of you wants to go first?"

Our pastor was teaching Proverbs 16:24: "Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones."

The minister then added, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

My wife leaned over, put her head on my shoulder, and whispered in my ear, "I just love to watch your muscles ripple when you take out the garbage."

We accompanied our son and his fiancée when they met with her priest to sign some pre-wedding ceremony papers. While filling out the form, our son read aloud a few questions. When he got to the last one, which read "Are you entering this marriage at your own will?" he looked over at his fiancée.

"Put down 'yes,' " she said.

A young parish minister about to deliver his first sermon asked a retired cleric for advice on how to capture the congregation's attention. "Start with an opening line that's certain to grab them," the older man said. "For example: 'Some of the best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman who was not my wife.' " He smiled at the younger man's shocked expression before adding, "She was my mother."

The next Sunday the young clergyman nervously clutched the pulpit rail in front of the congregation. Finally he said, "Some of the best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman."

He was pleased at the instant reaction—then became panic-stricken. "But for the life of me, I can't remember who she was!"

 

 

My friend and I delivered a large refrigerator to the local priest's home. With difficulty we had managed to get the fridge into the porch, but struggled for over 20 minutes to make the 90-degree turn through the narrow door. The priest, seeing our difficulty, asked what we usually did when confronted with such a situation.

Rubbing some badly skinned knuckles, I replied, "Well, Father, at this point we usually start cursing."

"Well, gentlemen," Father replied, "allow me time to move out of earshot so you can continue your work."

 

 

Every Catholic church in town but one had its Mass schedule posted in front. The exception announced the time weekly bingo started. I phoned the priest to complain.

"My son," he replied, "our parishioners know when we hold Mass, but we have to be sure the Protestants know when we hold bingo."

Kevin was not an ideal child. He managed to get into mischief frequently, and was always trailed by his younger brother, Ken. Finally, at her wits' end, his long-suffering mother took him to see their parish priest. The father decided to focus Kevin's mind on higher levels.

"Kevin," he asked with great seriousness, "where is God?"

Kevin gave no reply.

"Kevin, where is God?"

Again there was silence.

For a third time the priest asked the question, and this time Kevin bolted out of the office and ran all the way home. He burst into his brother's room.

"Ken," he panted breathlessly, "Father can't find God and he thinks we had something to do with it!"

 

 

When a thief snatched a chain necklace a friend of mine was wearing, she grabbed at his collar, trying unsuccessfully to stop his getaway. Asked for the thief's description later, she said, "Don't bother looking for him. He only got a costume-jewelry chain of mine. But when I grabbed him by the collar, I got his chain, and it's real gold!"

 

 

Slogan for a now out-of-business restaurant in Carmel, California:

"Karma Café. We don't have a menu. We give you just what you deserve."

 

 

 

 

The preacher, arriving in a small town to be guest speaker at a local church, wanted to mail a letter to his family back home. He stopped a young boy on a bike and asked him where the post office was. The boy gave him directions, and the preacher thanked him.

"If you come to church this evening," the preacher said, "I'll tell you how to get to heaven."

"I don't think I'll be there," the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office."

 

 

Sharma, my cousin, was telling me about an evening service at the church we've both attended for years. She and her husband usually sat in the back, but this time they moved up front to be sure to hear the Scripture reading. They sat beside a longtime church member who cheerfully said, "Good to have ya with us! Where y'all from?"

Taken by surprise, Sharma mumbled, "The back."

The funeral directors of the mortuary where I am a receptionist were asked by a grieving family if they could place a golf club in the casket alongside their uncle, who had been an avid golfer.

"Of course," was the answer.

On the day of the funeral, as the pallbearers descended the steps toward the hearse, a loud rattling and rolling came from the coffin. "Sounds like a pinball machine," murmured one startled director.

Later a family member of the deceased came to the chapel office to apologize. At the last minute, they had decided to place in the casket, along with the club, a half-dozen golf balls.

 

 

My sister's dog had been deaf and blind for years. When she started to suffer painful tumors, it was time to put her down. As I explained this to my seven-year-old son, he asked if Jazzy would go to heaven.

I said I thought she would, and that in dog heaven, she would be healthy again and able to do her favorite thing: chase squirrels.

Jacob thought about that for a minute, then said, "So dog heaven must be the same as squirrel hell."

 

 

A preacher was asking for contributions to the church's program to buy food for the needy. The town gambler, who also owned the saloon and several other shady operations, offered the preacher $500.

"You can't take that," a scandalized deacon told the preacher. "That's the devil's money."

"Well, brother," said the preacher, cheerfully accepting the gift, "in that case, the devil has had his hands on it long enough. Now let's see what the Lord will do with it."

In Fort Worth, Texas, I was hauled before the judge for driving with expired license plates. The judge listened attentively while I gave him a long, plausible explanation.

Then he said with great courtesy, "My dear sir, we are not blaming you—we're just fining you."

 

 

My six-year-old son was excited about his Halloween costume. "I'm going to be the Pope," he said.

"Ian, you can't be the Pope," I said. "You're not Catholic. You're Lutheran."

Ian hadn't thought about that. So he considered his alternatives. After a few minutes, he asked, "Is Dracula a Lutheran?"

A man is pulled over by a police officer for a broken headlight. The cop looks in the car and sees a collection of knives on the backseat. "Sir," he says. "Why do you have all those knives?" "They're for my juggling act," the man replies. "Prove it," says the cop. The man gets out of the car and begins juggling the knives just as two men drive by. "Man," says one guy. "I'm glad I quit drinking. These new sobriety tests are hard."  

An elderly couple, admitted by St. Peter through the Pearly Gates, found conditions there just heavenly. Said the man to his wife, "I could have been here two years ago if you hadn't fed me all that oat bran."

 

 

 

 

For the past year or so, my husband has helped count the collection money after church. One Sunday a visitor placed a $500 check in the plate. After the service my husband congratulated the priest on the large donation. "I'm sure it was because of your wonderful sermon," he gushed.

"Oh, boy," replied the priest. "If you can't be more honest than that, how can I trust you to count our money?"

Do you know how to make holy water? You take some regular water and you boil the hell out of it.

 

 

  

 

 

A distinguished minister and two elders from his congregation attended an out-of-town meeting that did not finish until rather late. They decided to have something to eat before going home, but unfortunately, the only spot open was a seedy bar-and-grill with a questionable reputation.

After being served, one of the elders asked the minister to say grace. "I'd rather not," the clergyman said. "I don't want him to know I'm here."